Wednesday, 4 July 2012

The European Union's job creation activities this week....

More than one in three young Italians are out of work. Over half of all Spaniards under 25 are unemployed. It is a similar number in Greece.

Everyday, the European Union pumps out regulations imposing costs on firms, discouraging employment creation, and generally making life unbearably difficult for the continent's small and medium sized enterprises.

During the last few days, the EU passed legislation on the following five issues:

A regulation approving the active substance bifenthrin, concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market.

New correction coefficients applicable to the remuneration and pensions of officials and other servants of the European Union.

Regulations establishing the standard import values for determining the entry price of certain fruit and vegetables

Regulations for fixing the import duties in the cereals sector applicable from 1 July 2012.

Do you think any of this nonsense produced a single job for a young European?

There is nothing remarkable about this list of foolishness. The Commission produces legislation every day; regulating, fixing, and formulating new rules that slowly strangle the entrepreneurial spirit of the continent.

5 comments:

Think of all the people needed to enforce and monitor those regulations; think of their assistants, their offices, their computer systems, the lunches they'll eat, and of course - best of all - their pensions.

All of it to be paid for by the remaining productive sector, of course.

"More than one in three young Italians are out of work. Over half of all Spaniards under 25 are unemployed." No, the figures are baked in a way that exaggerates the problem. What they do is divide (i) the number unemployed, not by (ii) the number in the age cohort, but instead by (iii) the number in the age cohort who are not in education or training.However serious the problem is, I don't see the advantage in this exaggeration. Or, to be accurate, I don't see the advantage to the disinterested observer e.g. me. I presume there must be an advantage to some Brussels apparatchik.

I am actually scared when I read about the Brussels machine. I really mean that. It's a monstrous bureaucracy which is not only inefficient and incredibly expensive but literally threatens to ruin all of us unless we get out. But nobody seems willing to listen or give proper air time to the "anti" debate.

Compared to places like Denmark and Hong Kong and Singapore, Westminster is a monstrous bureaucracy too ! A central planning authority for 60 million people ! All giving cover to totally unaccountable local government to engage in all sorts of boondoggle projects.